


Tell me where it hurts and let me fix you up

by cloudymood



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, No Plot, Stitches, jihoon is a doctor, jihoon's love language is acts of service, just this scene, seungcheol is hurt, taking care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27087331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudymood/pseuds/cloudymood
Summary: Thieves don’t knock. Neither do killers. But this one does.Jihoon has never asked Seungcheol how he got those injuries, partially because he is afraid to find out what Seungcheol’s hands have been doing, who they’ve been hurting, but mostly because being a doctor means saving people. It doesn’t matter whether they are good or bad, whether they have money or not.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Lee Jihoon | Woozi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	Tell me where it hurts and let me fix you up

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first work I'm able to finish in years, so I'm not 100% satisfied with it. English isn't my first language, so tell me if you find any mistakes.
> 
> Also, a huge thanks to my friends for always supporting me, whether I was talking about an idea I had or posting a wip on twitter.
> 
> This might be a little out of character and it's very short, but if I kept writing, I would never finish it.

  
It’s raining and the moon hides behind the dark clouds in the night sky, not even the stars dare to come out and play, even them know that this isn’t a typical night. Jihoon doesn’t hear gunshots, nor screams, nor cursing. But he does hear the sound of a knock on the window next to the fire escape stairs. Maybe there are others who come to a doctor’s house in the middle of the night through the rusty old stairs outside a building, but the only one that ever did that to Lee Jihoon is Choi Seungcheol.

The only light on his apartment comes from the television, as Jihoon watches some gruesome horror movies, the old ones, there’s a marathon of these movies on tv, he isn’t quite interested in, but it’s better than nothing. And another knock. Jihoon gets up from his sofa, still somewhere between the real world and the one created by the movie on TV that watches Jihoon and lures him into sleeping in the living room. His hands are quick to find the switch on the wall, lighting up the room. He knows the room as well as the palm of his hand. The same way Jihoon can name from memory every bone on his hands, he can easily tell the furniture in the room is. He stands there for a second, his left hand still on the switch, he watches the tall figure on his window.

Jihoon makes his way towards the kitchen, he turns on all the lights on his path until there, because Seungcheol doesn’t know this house as well as he knows the streets the lead there, Seungcheol could easily find his way to Jihoon and his caring tender hands on the darkest night, but he wasn’t as good in navigating through the house as he is at the streets, and the last thing that Jihoon wants it’s to see Seungcheol getting hurt two times in a single night. He unlocks the window, as he opens it the fresh air enters his apartment, and with it the smell of blood.

“Hey Jihoon”, Seungcheol says between heavy breathing. They’ve known each other for long, too long. When things were different and the most hurt Seungcheol would get would be a black eye and a scratch, it could all be healed with compress of ice and a band-aid. Before Jihoon could see him healing, until he got hurt again, but now Jihoon only sees him when he is hurt, and it’s after getting hurt and coming back that Jihoon knows that Seungcheol is okay, because when he comes it always means ‘fix me’, so when he takes too long to come back Jihoon always thinks that Seungcheol was broken beyond any repair.

“You are soaked”, that is all that Jihoon mumbles as Seungcheol enters his apartment through the small window. “Go to the sofa, I’ll get my stuff.”

“I’m soaked, I don’t want to ruin it”, he says. Seungcheol doesn’t move from the spot next to the window, the water dripping down his body to the kitchen floor, it’ll not be long before it becomes a small pool around Seungcheol’s feet.

“I know, Seungcheol. Get on the goddamn sofa”, Jihoon doesn’t look back as he speaks, he knows that Seungcheol won’t complain again. Although they have grown, Seungcheol still is the same stubborn boy he was before, the same boy that would tell Jihoon to not give him a band-aid because what if Jihoon needed it in the future. And Jihoon still is the only one that could ever make Seungcheol take care of himself, or better, the only one that could ever take care of Seungcheol.

Jihoon comes back with a first aid kit. He never needed it for anything other than Seungcheol’s wounds, and in a perfect world he wouldn’t need it at all. Seungcheol’s eyes are half open, Jihoon would like to think that it’s the movie on the TV lulling him to sleep, but he knows that it’s from the wound and that Seungcheol is doing the best to keep himself awake. It’s like a déjà vu, Jihoon thinks he has seen this scene way too many times.

“Tell me where it hurts and let me fix you up,” Jihoon whispers. “Tell me, Cheollie.”

Jihoon has never asked Seungcheol how he got those injuries, partially because he is afraid to find out what Seungcheol’s hands have been doing, who they’ve been hurting, but mostly because being a doctor means saving people. It doesn’t matter whether they are good or bad, whether they have money or not.

*

  
Seungcheol’s shirt is now unbuttoned up, his scars are visible to anyone to see, but it’s not like Jihoon wasn’t the one that stitched them back together, so Seungcheol doesn’t mind. And he wouldn’t mind even if he wasn’t the one that saved him more times that he could count, because it’s Jihoon after all, the only one that has ever known Seungcheol, that has ever seen whole and torn apart and still had the audacity to like him both ways. Seungcheol feels the warmth of Jihoon’s hands sliding the fabric down his shoulders, exposing even more of the other’s skin, so that he can properly see the injury. 

“You know that I don’t like to ask for help, right?”, Seungcheol says. His eyes follow carefully every and each one of Jihoon’s movements. The way his hands don’t wander and his eyes look fully focused on Seungcheol. How he moves from the sofa to the kitchen. It’s a scene that Seungcheol has seen a lot.

“Is that why you keep coming back to me? Because you don’t need to ask me to do so and yet I still do it anyway?” Seungcheol thought that Jihoon hadn’t listened to what he said, but there was his answer. He would rather not be listened to. “Drink it, honey”, Jihoon offers him the bottle of whiskey, almost at the end. He grabs the bottle, taking a mouthful from it but still leaving another sip, before giving it back to Jihoon.  
“It’s going to hurt”, Jihoon says as he offers Seungcheol a thick piece of fabric.

Seungcheol gives Jihoon a smirk. “It always does”, Seungcheol answers as he bites the piece of leather given by Jihoon.

It’s always the same, Jihoon gives Seungcheol some whiskey to numb the pain, and something to bite in case it hurts too much. They both know it’ll. Seungcheol closes his eyes, because as much as he likes to observe Jihoon, he doesn’t like to see when Jihoon is taking care of him, stitching him whole again. Maybe it will hurt less if he imagines himself troubling a stranger at a hospital, and not Jihoon.

Jihoon takes longer than usual, but just like always, he doesn’t say anything. The thing about Jihoon that took Seungcheol a long time to figure it out is that although he doesn’t say much, he cares more than he should. Jihoon never told Seungcheol that he loves him, but Seungcheol knows he does by the way he gently stitches his wounds, how he always put a pack of aspirin on the pocket of his jacket, or by how he always looks at the old scars, worried eyes, but quick to spot anything that might be wrong. Seungcheol thinks he told Jihoon that he loves him, but he can’t be sure if it was a product of a feverish dream or not. If it was real, Jihoon never said it back. And never asked him about it on another occasion. Because that is the way things are between them. Loving each other in silence, stolen gazes and lingering touches, saying _‘I love you’_ without saying _‘I love you’_.

Little by little, Seungcheol’s wound is swen, and he opens his eyes, just to see Jihoon standing in front of him applying a gauze onto his shoulder. “Remember when you used to put band-aids on my scratches?” Seungcheol's question catches Jihoon’s attention for a moment. Jihoon nods and gives a small smile at the memory of better times that won’t come back. 

“How are you going to pay me?”, Jihoon says as he buttons up the other’s shirt. His fingers carefully slide the buttons on their respectives buttonholes. He looks relieved as Seungcheol’s scars are covered by the piece of fabric, maybe if he can’t see them, it’ll be like there isn’t none. 

“You can keep the bullet”, Jihoon still holds the collar of his perfectly buttoned up shirt when Seungcheol finally answers. Jihoon slides his fingers through Seungcheol’s soaked hair. “A bullet is no payment, Seungcheol”, he says in a low toned voice.

One of Jihoon’s hands tenderly cups Seungcheol’s cheek, while the other one has found its way to the back of Seungcheol’s neck. “You are right. It’s a payback”, Seungcheol replies. His hand is now over Jihoon’s, “I will pay you someday”, Seungcheol says and moves his head slightly, just to place a kiss on the palm of Jihoon’s hand.

“I would rather never need to stitch you up again than receive money to keep doing it”, when Jihoon says it, his eyes are full of sorrow. Seungcheol doesn’t need to ask in order to know what Jihoon is mourning. It’s Seungcheol, and it’s them. None of them say anything else.

Seungcheol doesn’t know if it’s the whiskey he had early, or the warmth of Jihoon’s hand, maybe it’s the TV, but something takes him back to simpler times, when he would fall asleep at the couch of house, surrounded by cushions, while he watches a movie that his mom told him not to, take it’ll make him have nightmares. He knows what this feeling is. It’s a home. It’s all of that and more. It’s the couch and late night movies, it's falling asleep and waking up on his bed, an advice coming from a loving voice, fingers running through his hair. It was the gentleness that would come from the absence of violence, and now, despite the abundance of it. He closes his eyes, Jihoon’s loving gaze is the last thing that he sees before falling asleep.

When he wakes up, just like that would happen when he was a child, he isn’t on the sofa anymore. Jihoon is sleeping soundly on a chair on the corner of the room, Seungcheol can’t help but think about how stupid Jihoon is to, after all those years, keep prioritizing Seungcheol. He watches Jihoon one last time before getting up. Seungcheol places the blanket that used to be over himself on Jihoon, making sure he will be warm for the rest of the night.


End file.
